The bill for Agent Orange comes due

Age and Agent Orange are closing in on Vietnam veterans, a legacy of hurt for those who served — and a very big bill for American taxpayers.

It’s a world turned upside down from decades ago when returning soldiers had to fight to get attention for deadly lymphomas linked to the herbicide. Now the frailties of men in their 60s — prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease — lead the list of qualified Agent Orange disabilities, and the result has been an explosion in claims and the government’s liability.

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The latest expansion, approved by Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in October, adds ischemic heart disease and Parkinson’s and will cost at least $42 billion over the next 10 years. The VA estimates 349,000 individuals are already receiving Agent Orange disability benefits, and that number could soon reach 500,000 — or one out of every four surviving Vietnam veterans by the VA’s count.

As the costs rise, so do the questions about the science involved and the box Washington put itself in by failing to address Agent Orange’s impact more directly at the outset.

And because Vietnam service is still such a political minefield for American politicians, the most telling, often edgy debate is among veterans themselves.

“It is what it is. The anecdotal evidence of Vietnam veterans dying and getting diseases earlier is enormous,” said an exasperated Richard Weidman, an Army medic in the war and now legislative director for Vietnam Veterans of America. “I know five people in the VVA leadership alone who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. In no other side of my life have I seen anything like that.”

Yet for many who saw Vietnam firsthand, a 1-to-4 ratio of service-connected disabilities for Agent Orange strains credibility. And this is especially the case when the top conditions are heart disease and diabetes, two illnesses so linked to diet and lifestyle.

“Heart disease is a common phenomenon regardless of potential exposure to Agent Orange,” wrote Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) in a June letter to Shinseki challenging the secretary’s decision. A decorated Marine infantry officer in the war, Webb has since softened his tone after catching heat for his stance. But with his urging, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 23 on the new regulations, slated to take effect by December.

“I just want to understand the logic of how they decided this latest service connection,” said Webb. “This is a helluva awkward position to be in where I’ve been an advocate all my adult life on veterans’ benefits. I just want to know how they got to this point.”

Backing Webb is Anthony Principi, also a Vietnam veteran, and VA secretary under former President George W. Bush.

“He’s gotten some heat, but how can anyone question his patriotism and what he has done?” Principi said of Webb. “It’s got to be looked at; it’s got to be addressed. ... This is serious. The numbers are dramatic.”

“We’re 40 years later and we need to ask, is there a better way to do this? You want to do what’s right for veterans,” he told POLITICO. “At the same time, you want to protect the integrity of the disability compensation program.”

The convergence of cost pressures now is striking as captured by events on Tuesday this week.

That morning, the VA expects the Federal Register to publish the new Agent Orange rules to implement the latest expansion of benefits, including heart disease coverage. And that evening, President Barack Obama will speak to the nation on the U.S. transition between Iraq and Afghanistan, two fresh post-Vietnam wars with their own legacies of new disability claims.

Readers' Comments (540)

Still more worrisome is the government’s long-term unfunded liability, a number tucked away in VA’s annual financial reports. The latest for Sept. 30, 2009, shows an unfunded liability of $1.32 trillion for VA’s compensation and pensions account. That’s up almost $400 billion from $924 billion in a matter of five years.

Interpretation: The government is already obligated to shell out $1.32 T that it has not appropriated nor secured funding for. The unfunded liabilities will grow at a rate probably in excess of $100 B per year. Every year we are at war we add to that rate of growth.

This is not the total liability. THIS IS JUST THE UNFUNDED LIABILITY. The total liability is greater. Ignoring the cost of war is not conservative or patriotic--it is stupid and irresponsible. True conservatism recognizes the cost of America's endeavors so that America does not jump into ill-conceived wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan in haste.

Republicans want war but they do not want to help soldiers disabled in battle by recognizing or funding the true cost of war.

Of course in this case, JFK and LBJ murdered the 50,000 American soldiers and sprayed this stuff all over the place without setting up the funds for the treatment later needed.

True, plus Dow Chemical hid test results for years. But you conveniently fail to include Richard Nixon, who was President from 1969-74. Besides, one need not go back that far as George Bush Inc. sent our troops into Iraq with UNARMOR PLATED HumVees, lousy low grade vests, and recinded stop-loss duty. Then to really make our welcome truly memorable for years to come, he dumped tons of low grade radiocative material on Iraqi soil from the depleted uranium-made bullets we used. When it comes to war and screwing our own the troops, the GOP always does it best.

chalons what does ignoring veterans harmed by their military service for the past 40 years have to do with the new health care bill that deals with insurance policies and mandating coverage have to do with the way our nation has ignored disabled veterans?

Our elected government has ignored veterans harmed by chemical weapons and CW experiments during WW2 thru the Cold War until all human experiments were banned by President Ford in 1976.

There were 7120 enlisted men and women used at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 thru 1975, they also used drugs like LSD, and other mind altering drugs close to 400 different substances.

2100 enlisted men were used at Fort Detrick from 1955 thru 1972 in biological weapons experiments, the government has never done any long term health studies to even learn if they were harmed, since those experiments were ended after President Nixon signed the BWTC Treaty.

There were 6500 men used in the SHAD/112 experiments on tugboats in the Pacific, the land based tests at Dugway and Deseret Test Center in Utah, the 1966 sheep kills were part of this.

Tens of thousands of men were exposed to radiation in our nations above ground detonations of nuclear weapons in the Pacific and at the Nevada Test site, that our nation ignored until the majority of the men had died, Congress did pass the RECA compensation bill 1999 to compensate the men who ended up with cancers related to the nuclear tests.

Our nation has treated military personnel like dirt when it came to even admitting they had exposed them to all these toxic materials during their active duty service, they ignored the PROMISE all our draftees and people who enlist are given "if you die or are harmed by your service we will take care of you and or your family if needed. They didn't do it this has nothing to do with what you call "Obama Care" this is just about a nations broken promise nothing more and nothing less

"But you conveniently fail to include Richard Nixon, who was President from 1969-74."

But the responsibility for the murder of our Soldiers in VN does lie with JFK, if as you would say, it lies with Bush in "his wars". The point of the comment at hand was that neither JFK nor LBJ saw fit to set up the funding for the treatment that would be needed for the next 60 years after their war. The original poster had, as you say, "conveniently failed" to mention it. He ended his/her comment about a VN era piece with "Republicans want war but they do not want to help soldiers disabled in battle by recognizing or funding the true cost of war" when, in this case, it was a Dem war.

Just another expensive, tragic aspect of war. Senator Webb should do his questioning and investigating privately -- that is, away from public microphones. He sounds like the shameless Republicans who praise the military men and women while using them as fodder for our War Machine, but then want to ignore them or nickel-and-dime them once they return home severely damaged or with long-term, expensive problems.

Republicans want war but they do not want to help soldiers disabled in battle by recognizing or funding the true cost of war.

For probably the first time ever, I was in agreement with what you had to say. Until you spewed the partisan nonsense. Your liberal buddies signed on to the escapade. Were they simply being "team players", i.e. spineless or were they snookered, i.e. too stupid to exercise independent thought?

Good morning, America! Those who swear President Obama is not an American native-born citizen and not a Christian are part of a foreign secret system of heathen terrorists out to destroy our confidence in our truly great and deeply spiritual Christian president. They are trying to undermine and sabotage our representative democracy. They are involved in a secret conspiracy to overthrow our government so they can replace it with a demonic theocracy. They are as stupid as they seem but the Terrorist Puppet-Masters want them stupid and relentless. (Who but the dumbest of the dumb would be the terrorist masterminds' puppets?)They are definitely not real Americans, for I have demanded they show me their birth certificates in person and take my grueling religion and Constitution exams to prove their birth place, faith and patriotism and not one has done so! And you will never convince me I’m wrong because that’s just the way it is with we conspiracy theorists; we can explain away any and all facts and truthful corrective information with another conspiracy theory. We live in deep denial in order to demonize and to demonize without our conscience tormenting us. Have a good day!

Besides, one need not go back that far as George Bush Inc. sent our troops into Iraq with UNARMOR PLATED HumVees, lousy low grade vests,

This is a failing of military leadership who perform planning, not the President. You can go back to WWII and beyond to see examples of this. Sherman tanks were produced en masse to compensate for the attrition rate.

Hank G who passed Medicare Part D at 3am? Who passed the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that save the top 2% of our taxpayers hundreds of millions in taxes? It was not Obama it wasn't even the Democrats I do believe that was done by The "Hammer"........

Let the republicans privatize YOUR social security and leave MINE alone neither political party is without sin both have spent decades ripping off the voters and we let them

Another government Dem idea got us into this mess since it was LBJ who escalated this "conflict" or whatever he called it at the time to over 500,000 boots on the ground in VNM. LBJ the big ego and big government legislation who never saw the war out after MLK Jr. protested it and was assisnated , LBJ made an announcement to never seek re-election for another term. Who would have voted for him anyway? Everyone had a soldier they knew over there, and LBJ wanted to run the war from D.C. with the attitude that the more men he put over there, the more he would win. Didn't happen.He was the second facist type Democrat presidents we have had, after FDR.

So, more power to the vets of this Democrat failed war to get as much in reparations from the gov't as they can. Paying taxes for them to have care is fine, unlike most of the Dems big governemnt schemes, this needs to be taken care of.

chalons what does ignoring veterans harmed by their military service for the past 40 years have to do with the new health care bill that deals with insurance policies and mandating coverage have to do with the way our nation has ignored disabled veterans?

What do they have in common? The efficacy, expedience, and efficiency of huge political bureaucracies. That's what.

Interpretation: The government is already obligated to shell out $1.32 T that it has not appropriated nor secured funding for. The unfunded liabilities will grow at a rate probably in excess of $100 B per year. Every year we are at war we add to that rate of growth.